Friday, 16 September 2011
The natural habitat of Cronobacter spp. is not well understood; however, they have been isolated from a diverse range of environments, e.g. processing plants, domestic environments, and foods, e.g. powdered infant formula, fermented bread, cheese.
In 2007, E. sakazakii was reclassified as Cronobacter spp. The new genus is composed of 6 species: Cronobacter sakazakii; C. turicensis; C. malonaticus; C. muytjensii and C. dublinensis. A sixth species was indicated as genomospecies I, however, it includes only 2 representative strains at the present time. Cronobacter spp. are synonymous with E. sakazakii and thus this nomenclature is used throughout this factsheet.
Cronobacter spp. have been implicated in outbreaks causing meningitis and enteritis, especially in infants.
